Aspects of the disclosure relate to computing technologies. In particular, aspects of the disclosure relate to systems, methods, apparatuses, and computer-readable media that perform gesture recognition.
Increasingly, computing devices, such as smart phones, tablet computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other devices, include touch screens, accelerometers, cameras, proximity sensors, microphones, and/or other sensors that may allow these devices to capture motion and/or other sensed conditions as a form of user input. In some devices, for instance, particular movements and/or occurrences may be recognized, for instance, as gestures that correspond to particular commands in different situations. For example, a device may recognize a gesture, such as a left swipe (e.g., in which a user waves their hand in front of the device to the left), as corresponding to a “previous page” command while a browser application is displayed and a “previous track” command while a media player application is displayed. In this example, a user may cause the device to execute these commands by performing the corresponding gestures in each of these situations.
Aspects of the disclosure provide more convenient, intuitive, and functional ways of performing gesture recognition. In a touch system, a user's finger touches a glass surface of a computing device, then moves in the direction of a gesture, and then lifts from the glass surface, giving a clear indication of the beginning and end of the gesture. In touch-free systems, there is not an inherently clear way to determine the beginning and end of a gesture.
Embodiments of the invention provide improved techniques to address these problems.